Two Sides to the Coin

A common refrain is that a person’s strength is often their weakness. Personally, I believe that is true. A perfectionist can create a beautiful outcome; they can also suffocate a project and ensure its demise. A prolific communicator can move people with words; they can also put their foot in their mouth. It happens all the time.

I think this perspective holds true for our president. He has an uncanny ability to influence people to do what he wants. There are few people I can recall who are more adept at this than he is. This ability has served him well.

In fact, I can think of two examples that even his most ardent haters should find hard to dispute, where his power to influence delivered a brilliant outcome: the Covid vaccine, and the truce in Gaza. These two accomplishments will go down as his greatest achievements.

His ability to deliver the vaccine in record time saved countless lives. Everyone should be comfortable acknowledging that and recognizing the tall task we faced and how his efforts made the difference.

His recent efforts to insert himself into the Gaza mess and find a solution to bring the hostages home and stop the bloodshed are admirable and, frankly, stunning. I understand there is much to be done and little assurance this will hold, but he deserves credit, and it should come from all Americans regardless of political affiliation. His leadership reflects the position the US holds in the world and makes us all safer.

Then there is the other side of the coin. It is funny how someone possesses the ability to achieve results like that while being capable of creating harm using the same skill.

I have often wondered how to frame the president and his actions. A thoughtful answer has been elusive. However, I think stepping back and accepting his powers of persuasion has delivered value is useful. I believe his personality and his unconstrained deployment of it, offers us the best way to understand Trump.

Everything he does, right or wrong, stems from his profound confidence in his skill of influencing people.

I was once told by someone who worked with Trump that he wasn’t moral or immoral; he was amoral. He believed in his own right or wrong and nothing else. Having observed his two terms as president, I think my friend nailed him. He doesn’t think of the world within a moral code. He has his own code, which defines his behavior.

Warren Buffett famously says, “In looking for people to hire, look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence and energy. And if they don’t have the first one, the other two will kill you.” It is an interesting approach and one I wholeheartedly agree with.

What then are we to make of the quote and the awareness that the President doesn’t operate within a moral code? It means that one day he can achieve greatness, and the next day create a problem.

This contrast has led to an environment where it is easy to love the president or to hate him. Both sides can find things they want to point to. I don’t think that will change, as I don’t believe the president will change. He is who he is. And we are going to get the good and the bad based on his focus and uncanny ability to move people.

What is interesting is considering how long support from his followers will last for actions that result from his personality but are not helpful. In ten months, he caused a tariff war and created an environment where farmers — you know, the ones who voted for him — now need a bailout to survive. His immigration policy and deportation tactics led communities across the country to question the administration’s actions. The administration detained good people, not because they were violent criminals, but because it wanted them all gone. It is why you see people saying things like, “I didn’t know he was going to deport my neighbor.”

If you do not have a moral code but possess the power to influence with your power of persuasion, you can cause a lot of harm. This is especially true if you use your skill to influence those around you to the point where they will do anything you say. It is how cult leaders find success.

I am not judging or offering my view; I am simply pointing out that our president is impressively persuasive, and he doesn’t have a core standard to control his deployment of that power.

I have a dear friend, an unabashed Trump supporter, with whom I discussed this topic several months back. Interestingly, he didn’t defend the moral shortcomings of the president. Rather, he said, “I never thought I was hiring a priest or a plumber. I wanted someone who matched my policy beliefs.” Okay, you can unpack that as you wish, but what happens when the person you hired takes their power and deploys strategies that fit their framework, not yours?

You should hope that someone with the ability to move mountains and total power is grounded in something admirable. And that is the question. Despite all the good he does, can we say he is driven by a good heart? Or can we accept him because we didn’t need him to be as moral as the plumber we hired?

The success or failure of our country has rarely been so determined by our president. You must go way back in history to find a president whose actions had more impact. Part of this is the free rein the courts and his party have given him. It is also because he is so good at getting what he wants. It is this that makes his potential so great and equally dangerous. He can deliver a vaccine to save lives, bring a truce to Gaza, and create chaos out of nothing.

Sometimes when I think of our president, I feel immediate disappointment. He held in his hands the opportunity to be great. To affect this country in ways that would catapult us forward into this new age of technology and change. He, with his ability to persuade others, could have been one of our best modern-day presidents. But he hasn’t done that, and people will not remember him for transformative good. It is likely people will remember him for doing two great things and a series of things that made things worse.

To be sure, he should receive credit for his brilliant achievements. He deserves to be heralded when he accomplishes something significant. He should also be held accountable for his actions that aren’t resulting in good outcomes.

If you hire someone at work who is a perfectionist, you relish the times when that skill creates value. You are also hypersensitive to the moments when it is counterproductive. We should apply the same standard to the president. We don’t need to attack him for his skill; we need to protect ourselves from his ability to do things because he wants to, not because it is best.

Maybe the first step in this is for ardent supporters to take a step back and accept the reality of who he is and to relax over the boogeyman he has created with Democrats. He has used his magical ability to influence to convince his supporters that the other side is the anti-Christ. They are not. Does the Democratic Party have problems? Yes, they do. They even have a section of their support that is very destructive and dangerous. But they are not the scourge of the earth that Trump wants us to believe.

The spell the president has on many of his followers is troublesome. For example, it is fascinating how many good Christians have concluded that Trump is something he isn’t — a moral person with high ethical standards. His skills of persuasion have convinced many people to ignore who he is and his moral failings because he is their leader. I could argue that of all the things he has done with his talent to influence, causing Christians to forget their teachings and follow his amoral code is the most damaging.

We should all be comfortable in saying we know who our president is. He is a talented manipulator who can accomplish great things. He is also capable of dangerous actions. Someone who can cause harm to our country and to people if left unchecked. Isn’t it time we support him when he is on the right path and challenge him when he isn’t? Isn’t it time we sought to get the best outcome from him? To commit to ourselves that when he does something that lacks character, we resist.

We have an opportunity. We can try to harness his ability and create a better country. There is time. He still has over three years left.

Not that we all must agree, nor will we even agree about what policy is right or wrong. It is to suggest that this country and its citizens know when something isn’t moral, or at least we used to.